Page 138 of The Professor's Wife

The fright washed over me so strongly, I couldn’t breathe.

“Oliver—what is this?” I shrieked.

I clumsily attempted to lean over and touch the thick chain around my ankle, but the world spun and I paused.

Nausea slammed into me, born from thirst, hunger, and the worst goddamn fear I’d ever felt.

I dry-heaved.

“Oliver? What the hell?”

“You’ll get used to it,” he said, his voice eerily empty.

I froze, bile burning the back of my throat as my raw eyes returned to him.

“What are you… Oliver, why am I in fucking chains?”

“I need to know where you are. This guarantees I’ll find you in this room when I return.”

I struggled to understand him, too filled with anger now to make sense of it.

“What the fuck?” I started to shout, my astonishment twisting into rage. “This isn’t fucking funny, Oliver! Get this fucking thing off me!”

He didn’t react to my hysterics. If anything, he remained unmoving, his face eerie in the dim light as he looked over every inch of me.

“You embarrassed me,” he said evenly. “You made a fool out of me in front of everyone, showing them how little you knew. Do you know what that was like? To be a philosopher—a mentor—with a wife ignorant of the most basic philosophical teachings that shaped the human mind?”

I shook my head, not bothering to grasp his words. My whole focus was on the fucking chain around my ankle.

“Let me go, Oliver. Get this fucking thing off me—”

“That will never happen again,” he cut in coldly. “You will never humiliate me like that again.”

Rage pulsed inside me, so tangible and fierce I could taste it on my tongue.

I was shaking. Unable to keep my breaths steady.

The claustrophobia of having the chain on me and being too weak to even move made me scream, “Oliver, I swear—I swear to FUCKING GOD—if you don’t get this fucking chain off me in the next ten seconds, I will leave you. I’ll take Rowe—”

“You’re not going anywhere,” he said calmly. “Rowe is mine now.”

My rage turned venomous.

“Yours?” I spat. “YOURS?”

“You remember August, don’t you? When you lost control that night? When you destroyed the living room and threatened to hurt me? You can’t deny it. You wrote the apology letters. You told Dr. Carlisle about your violent, abusive outburst. It’s all documented. In your own words, you have a history of explosive behavior.”

What—

I shook my head, horror dawning as I realized I couldn’t recall the events leading up to this very moment.

It was similar.

Too similar.

“You drugged me,” I whispered. “You made me think I did it.”

There was no way.